WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence criticized American companies on Thursday for trying to silence speech that expresses support for democratic, liberal values in order to maintain access to the Chinese market, saying the corporations should adhere to American principles while doing business with China.
In a wide-ranging policy speech on what he called the “fundamental restructuring of our relationship with China,” Mr. Pence accused Nike of checking its “conscience at the door” and owners and players in the N.B.A. of “siding with the Chinese Communist Party” by suppressing support for the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. He highlighted those examples to make a wider point about how American companies often make compromises with China that put them at odds with Western liberal values — and the long-term effect this has on candid discussion of China among Americans.
“By exploiting corporate greed, Beijing is attempting to influence American public opinion, coercing corporate America,” Mr. Pence said. “And far too many American multinational corporations have kowtowed to the lure of China’s money and markets by muzzling not only criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, but even affirmative expressions of American values.”
The N.B.A. this month came under widespread criticism, including from American lawmakers in both parties, when it initially sided with a Chinese government attack on a Houston Rockets executive who had expressed sympathy for the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong in a tweet.
Mr. Pence, speaking at a Wilson Center event at the Conrad Hotel, said that Nike stores in China had removed Rockets merchandise during the controversy. (Nike did not respond to a request for comment.)
“And some of the N.B.A.’s biggest players and owners, who routinely exercise their freedom to criticize this country, lose their voices when it comes to the freedom and rights of the people of China,” he said. “In siding with the Chinese Communist Party and silencing free speech, the N.B.A. is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of the authoritarian regime.”
“A progressive corporate culture that willfully ignores the abuse of human rights is not progressive — it’s repressive,” he added, in an attempt to inject American partisan politics into the issue.
People associated with the N.B.A. pushed back later Thursday. “We’ve adhered to our core values from the first moment,” Adam Silver, the commissioner of the N.B.A., said on the TNT show “Inside the NBA.” “And I’ll just say once again, we’re going to double down on engaging with the people of China, and India, and throughout Africa, around the world, regardless of their governments.”
Charles Barkley, the retired player who is now an analyst on the show, was more blunt. “Vice President Pence needs to shut the hell up,” he said. “All American companies are doing business in China.”
In his speech, Mr. Pence went on to say that the Trump administration sought to build a new relationship with China based on mutual candor and was not seeking to “decouple” the economies, the two largest in the world. The language of Mr. Pence’s speech, while still confrontational, highlighted the potential for positive engagement to a larger degree than the one he delivered last October at the Hudson Institute.
Washington and Beijing have been struggling to settle a bitter trade war that President Trump started in July 2018; the two sides are trying to complete a tentative initial deal that still does not address the major issues, including access to technology. Administration officials are clashing with one another over the degree to which the two nations and their companies should share technology.
Even before the start of the trade war, national security officials in Washington had announced that the United States was in an era of great power competition with China and Russia. That idea is enshrined in Mr. Trump’s national security strategy, though Mr. Trump himself rarely talks about strategic or human rights issues involving China, and he has boasted that he and President Xi Jinping are close friends.
Mr. Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have taken a harder line on China in their public pronouncements.
“The United States seeks engagement with China and China’s engagement with the wider world, but engagement in a manner consistent with fairness, mutual respect and the international rules of commerce,” Mr. Pence said. “But, so far, it appears the Chinese Communist Party continues to resist a true opening or a convergence with global norms.”
He noted that since his hawkish speech one year ago, “Beijing has still not taken significant action to improve our economic relationship.”
“And on many other issues we’ve raised, Beijing’s behavior has become even more aggressive and destabilizing,” he added.
That appeared to be an acknowledgment that the trade talks have done little to force major structural concessions from China, including getting the Chinese government to reduce its subsidies to state-owned enterprises.
Mr. Pence listed areas of concerns, including China’s export of surveillance technology, its militarization of the South China Sea and its attempts to build infrastructure around the globe, including ports that could potentially be used by the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
“But nothing in the past year has put on display the Chinese Communist Party’s antipathy to liberty so much as the unrest in Hong Kong,” he said.
Mr. Pence closed by saying: “America is reaching out our hand to China. And we hope that, soon, Beijing will reach back, this time with deeds, not words, and with renewed respect for America.”
Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, said: “It was refreshing to hear the administration call on American corporations to represent American values. Nike and the N.B.A. are no more guilty of ‘kowtowing’ to Beijing than other multinationals, however, including those in the hospitality, technology and commercial aviation industries.”
“The real question is to what degree American corporations should be asked, or compelled, to sacrifice the American value of free markets to the American value of free speech,” he added. “Combating China’s worldwide promotion of illiberalism will not be cost free.”
Advocates for tougher measures on China over its repression of Muslims, most of whom are from the ethnic Uighur minority, were in the audience.
“I’m so glad to have listened,” said Mihrigul Tursun, who is one of more than one million Muslims who have been held in Chinese internment camps. “He talked about the Uighur issues in China. I hope he takes action. There hasn’t been any action until now.”
In early October, the Trump administration imposed some commercial restrictions on Chinese technology companies and other organizations believed to be involved in the repression, and it said it would impose a visa ban on officials. But Ms. Tursun said the United States should impose sanctions on specific Chinese officials under the Global Magnitsky Act.
“I ask why America hasn’t taken action,” she said.